Half Moon Lake

On a summer’s day in southern Louisiana, 1913, Sonny Davenport wanders away from his family’s vacation home at Half Moon Lake and doesn’t come back.

John Henry and Mary Davenport search for their child across the state and throughout the South. John Henry offers an enormous reward for Sonny’s return. Mary turns to spiritualists and occultists. Tom McCabe, a reporter at The St. Landry Clarion, becomes unhealthily attached to Mary and John Henry. After years of crushing disappointments following hope, Sonny is found with a peddler in Alabama. But the Davenports’ joy at finding their son is cut short when another woman, unwed domestic worker Grace Mill, claims the boy is hers.

As the two mothers fight to claim the child, people choose sides, testing loyalties, the notion of truth, and the meaning of the word family.

Half Moon Lake is a work of fiction. There is, however, a fascinating true story that inspired thenovel – that of American boy Bobby Dunbar. Reporter Tal McThenia and Margaret Dunbar Cutright tell that story in A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping that Haunted a Nation (Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc, 2012). Should the reader be interested in truth rather than fiction I strongly recommend McThenia’s and Dunbar Cutright’s detailed and compassionate telling of it.

Half Moon Lake on Spotify

Half Moon Lake is set in 1913-1916. It was a time of incredible social, cultural and technological change — women campaigned for the right to vote, Jim Crow laws were in force, the First World War began; stainless steel, crossword puzzles, bras and gas masks were invented; every art form was radically reconsidered. The music embodied much of this dynamic time. This was the era of ragtime, dixieland, classical music like no one had heard it before (there were riots when Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris), the earliest jazz, wartime songs. Sadly, not all of it was recorded. It’s hard to find some of the popular music of the day (spirituals, folk songs) performed by women, African American or Indigenous American musicians. And that’s telling in itself… But what is available is great - strange, surprising and fun. So here’s a playlist to accompany Half Moon Lake, from America's South and beyond.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, 12 January 2019A gripping, nervy tale of identity, class and race, in which power and money triumph over truthful the way to the shocking final scene… a strong original narrative, with a central mystery and an intriguing plot.(This review appeared in print, not online.)

Good Reading review, January 2019This is a powerful novel that examines the nature of identity and family bonds. Life in the south is evocatively described, from the landscape to the social politics, the plight of black slaves and the fate of orphaned children who are auctioned off… Alexander’s thoughtful novel kept me engrossed and raised plenty of questions that had me thinking about the book long after I finished.https://www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au/articles/article/view/id/1406